Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Lapdog MSM Media Not Doing It’s Job

I finally reached the breaking point while watching MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson the other night one too many times. Even though I was trying not to. With all the possible candidates available to anchor a show one must ask what kind of dirt does this guy have on MSNBC executives that can possibly keep this preppy talking airhead on the air.

The heights of ignorant pre washed pabulum fed the public from the mouth of Tucker and his ilk make one fear for the future of the country.

"This is typical press hypocrisy. They say they want someone who doesn’t give pat political answers. But when they get one, they call him a loser.

They say they don’t want safe robots like Hillary, but they create conditions where only that species can survive. And then they give cover to people like Sean Hannity, who reported on (Obama’s) no pin-gate and then had to call a doctor because his fake outrage hard-on lasted longer than 72 hours." (Bill Mayer HBO on Real Time)

Everyone with half a brain knows that FOX News is a direct tool of the right and the Republican agenda. The bigger problem is that the rest of these other so called fair and balanced news networks including CNN and MSNBC are not any better when it comes to the bringing into the living rooms of America what amounts to none other then antiseptic dumb downed crap disguised as factual news. This bodes badly for the US because most of the unwashed NASCAR what's a blog masses out there get their news from TV.

This is a fatal flaw within the worlds of modern news coverage. The consequence of which can be seen in the run up to the Iraq war and numerous other public scandals. The television and print media almost completely acquiesced their roles in our democracy by not vigorously challenging administration claims until it was far too late.

Not much has really improved. They apparently live in fear of challenging establishment positions or agenda. This being the fallout from the fact that not many news networks actually do the old fashion type of in-house investigative news gathering that is necessary to bring the truth to bare. They rely on outside sources and experts. These sources are often tied to special interests groups with an agenda or one of the political parties working from talking points.

With the reduction of the size and scope of news staffs at most MSM television news outlets often we are faced with accepting the opinions of the so called expert talking heads correspondents who provide mainstream uncontroversial pat political answers to softball questions.

Anchors often are no more then know nothing news readers acting under the guise of actually knowing something about the subject they are leading a discussion about. Just watch one day of MSNBC or CNN daytime news if you need proof. It often more about being another seemingly intelligent pretty face then investigative truth seeking red meat news coverage. Hardly able to disguise the angst for the next recurring news story on Paris, Britney or the birth of panda bears.

Outrageous claims and talking points put forward by political operatives go completely unchallenged more often then not. It is often obvious that the news anchor knows little or nothing about the issue and is simple there to facilitate an appearance of the agenda driven guest.

One case in point was the recent piece on President Jimmy Carter on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. Carter in a BBC interview called VP Dick Cheney a “disaster” and also indicated he had no doubt the US was responsible for torture. Matthews jump at the opportunity to create a controversy by asking if Carter thought Bush was a liar. Another trait of the modern media is to create false controversy in hopes it will make news and ratings. It often takes the subject off point as it did with the General Petraeus MoveOn.org phony rightwing outrage feeding frenzy.

Later in the round table panel of experts segment of the show Matthews panelist Dana Milbank offered, when ask a softball question, what he thought of Carter’s comments. He indicated that Carter had somehow degraded the office of the presidency by saying such things.

How? By telling the truth? What hypocrisy. The point being that these so called MSM news organizations can no longer handle or are capable of providing the truth apparently.